


Deeper and Deeper

by INMH



Category: Final Fantasy Type-0
Genre: Angst, Blood, Drama, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, No Character Death, Spoilers, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 21:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4321467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The decline of Rem Tokimiya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deeper and Deeper

“Rem? What’s wrong?”  
  
She was dizzy, her vision blurry and dim. To think that a coughing fit could undo a person so completely.  
  
When she was able to focus again, the first thing she saw was Machina’s horrified eyes looking right into hers.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
She breathed slowly, trying not to trigger another fit, and finally managed a sweet smile.  
  
“I’m fine, Machina- just my allergies acting up again!”  
  
[---]  
  
She was lying, and she knew it.  
  
[---]  
  
When _exactly_ had it started? It was hard to say.  
  
One minute, everything was fine: She was acing every test given to her, had become friendly with so many people- and even found Machina again, lucky enough.  
  
And then one day, she coughed.  
  
She brushed it off, assuming it to be allergies, or a bit of dust. She’d been in the Crystarium, after all.  
  
But then, the next day, she coughed some more.  
  
And the day after that.  
  
And all the days after that as well.  
  
And soon it wasn’t just a cough, it was a deep, _deep_ hacking that sounded like it belonged to a chain-smoker, not a healthy young cadet.  
  
Everything went down hill from there.  
  
[---]  
  
The point at which it became something she could no longer ignore was when she was sent to join Class Zero with Machina.  
  
She saw the way some of the others looked at them, at her, some curious, others skeptical, a couple out-right hostile; whatever their intentions or intensity, they all carried the same message: _Can you hold your own among us, or are we gonna have to hold your hand?_  
  
She was determined to prove herself.  
  
She was good.  
  
She was worthy.  
  
[---]  
  
So naturally, she was also very, very sick.  
  
[---]  
  
She didn’t like Dr. Al-Rashia, even if it never came across as such.  
  
For the most part, this dislike was born of the fact that it was painfully obvious that Dr. Al-Rashia was not fond of her- or Machina- at all. Not in the slightest.  
  
She didn’t even try to hide it, either.  
  
“Ah, it’s _you_. What do _you_ want?”  
  
She flushed, with irritation and a bit of hurt rather than breathlessness.  
  
“There’s something wrong with me.”  
  
Al-Rashia raised an eyebrow at that- surprised, and maybe holding back a little bite.  
  
“Oh, really? Tell me more.”  
  
[---]  
  
She wasn’t taken off duty, to her surprise.  
  
Al-Rashia gave her no diagnosis, but medication that should (“ _should_ ”) alleviate the symptoms. She did her exercises and missions with Class Zero. In her spare time, she did her written work and worked on getting closer to her new classmates.  
  
Deuce and Cinque were, perhaps, the most openly welcoming.  
  
“So you were in Class Seventh before you transferred here?” Deuce inquired over lunch one day.  
  
“I was!”  
  
“That must have been niiiice,” Cinque giggled, pushing her food around her plate with her fork. “I like the pink capes. Red is nice, but it gets old after a while.” She looked down. “Aren’t you hungry, Remski? You haven’t eaten a thing.”  
  
She glanced down at her plate- completely untouched. And no, to think of it, she wasn’t hungry at all.  
  
“Well, I ate a big breakfast. I’m probably still full.”  
  
[---]  
  
The medication helped.  
  
A bit.  
  
For a little while.  
  
[---]  
  
“I think, perhaps, that your illness is a bit graver than I first supposed.”  
  
She didn’t react.  
  
“It would seem as though this condition might be… Terminal, I’m afraid.”  
  
It sounded less like she was trying to be nice, and more like she was trying to be tactful for professionalism’s sake.  
  
“Terminal?”  
  
“Yes, terminal. There are other medications you can try, ones that _could_ work… But I guarantee nothing.”  
  
Of course she said yes.  
  
[---]  
  
Terminal.  
  
Terminal, as in _death_.  
  
Death, as in forgotten by everyone and everything.  
  
Including Machina.  
  
She felt dizzy, less from her coughing-fit-induced headache and more from a sense of deep, crushing anxiety.  
  
She could die.  
  
Not from battle, not from defending Rubrum in the war, but from a creeping illness in her lungs that she had no control over.  
  
She could barely eat, barely breathe, and now she couldn’t sleep either.  
  
[---]  
  
“Rem, are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
Machina’s plaintive gaze pained her.  
  
She hated lying to him. She hated how it would hurt him if he knew how serious the situation was.  
  
But she also hated how she couldn’t confide in him. She hated how she couldn’t cry and tell him how frightened she was, how desperate she felt as her future got shorter and shorter and slipped through her fingers.  
  
[---]  
  
“Yeesh, Rem, you on a diet or something? You’re looking a little scrawny there, girl.” Cater seemed to like her and Machina well enough, so she knew the remark was meant to be a light observation, not a veiled insult.  
  
“You are looking like you’ve lost a bit of weight, Rem,” Deuce suggested, a little more gently. “Are you feeling alright?”  
  
“Oh, I’m fine. It’s probably just all of this activity lately. I’ll be fine.”  
  
She ignored the worried way Machina looked at her from her left.  
  
[---]  
  
She tried to muffle the coughing fits, tried to hold them off until people were talking so they would go unnoticed in the background, tried to force herself to eat despite not only being not hungry, but being vaguely nauseated whenever she ate even a normal amount of food.  
  
She tried everything.  
  
It wasn’t enough.  
  
[---]  
  
“The medication is not working.”  
  
Yes, she knew that.  
  
“Your symptoms are getting worse.”  
  
She knew that, too.  
  
“How much time do I have?”  
  
She said the words, she wanted to know, but it wasn’t real yet.  
  
“I can’t say, but perhaps you should start saying your goodbyes.”  
  
 _So that’s it._  
  
 _It’s done._  
  
 _I’m going to die._  
  
“I heard from my predecessor that you want to fight on the battlefield until the very end?”  
  
She tried to recall that conversation- but yes, she could recall express such a desire to her previous instructors, that she wanted to die such a death if death was all that was in store for her.  
  
“Yes. If I’m…”  
  
- _dying-_  
  
“…not going to recover, then I don’t want to just lie in bed waiting to die.”  
  
 _I won’t just wither away._  
  
 _I will be **useful.**_  
  
“Then you’ll need to submit your request on paper.”  
  
 _So that she won’t be accused of forcing me to._  
  
“I’m giving you a new prescription to take every morning. Just so you know, you may experience intense pain at night.”  
  
 _It’s not like I was sleeping anyways._  
  
“Yes, I understand.”  
  
“Dismissed.”  
  
She started to leave, numb from head to toe, but then stopped. “Um…”  
  
Al-Rashia turned back to face her. “You have another question?”  
  
 _Many, that you can’t answer._  
  
But that wasn’t the point.  
  
“Could I ask you… Not to tell anyone in Class Zero that I’m sick?”  
  
She can’t bear the thought of them knowing, the looks, the pity, and the tears she might, maybe, see from a few.  
  
But especially from Machina.  
  
“Oh, that’s not problem. Personal information on cadets is strictly confidential. I won’t tell anyone.”  
  
[---]  
  
She was dying.  
  
She would die.  
  
She would die, and everyone she knew would lose their memories of her as surely as she had lost her memories of her own loved ones.  
  
There was no escape from this.  
  
There would be no sudden chance at salvation.  
  
There was nothing, nothing but the hope that she might give her life in battle before the sickness got her first.  
  
[---]  
  
The coughing fits got worse. Occasionally she would tiny droplets of blood on her palms afterwards, which she was quick to wipe on her skirt. Disgusting, perhaps, but far less likely to be noticed by anyone, like a handkerchief might.  
  
She was barely eating. When she did, it wasn’t so much that she was eating, but rather that she was forcing food into her mouth and down her throat. Her weight slowly, slowly continued to drop. Training grew increasingly difficult.  
  
And she certainly wasn’t sleeping. The anxiety surrounding her impending death, combined with the torturous effects of the medication that was fending that death off, made it so that her nights were spent less with sleep and more with her whimpering into her pillow and riding out the waves of agony that coursed through her body.  
  
[---]  
  
Everyone noticed.  
  
Whether they guessed the severity or not, she wasn’t certain; but they occasionally mentioned her symptoms, asked how she was feeling.  
  
Still, no one raised any questions regarding the severity of her illness, nor did they ever ask after whether or not she should still be on duty as a result; they knew she got her check-ups from Dr. Al-Rashia, just as they did, and so they probably assumed that she was well-cared for.  
  
“Rem, Rem, Remmy-Rem-Rem! How you doing? Still got both your lungs?” Jack inquired one day, not long after they had returned from Milites. His positivity was comforting, especially since there were more than a few people giving them dirty looks lately.  
  
“I do,” She responded, compulsively rubbing a thumb near her lips in the event that her latest fit had left any blood on them.  
  
Jack folded his arms behind his back and stretching them out. “Hey, I’m curious- why do you cough so much? You got a really tenacious cold, or what?”  
  
She blanked out for a moment, quickly trying to remember what excuse she’d used before. It was crucial not to forget which she’d said to someone else.  
  
“Asthma,” She said finally, “Asthma, and a lot of allergies make it worse.”  
  
“Huh! Does they make you lose weight too?”  
  
She froze, panic setting in. “Huh?”  
  
“You’ve lost a lotta weight. That the allergies? I remember a long time ago there was this guy who used to train us in sword-fighting and _he_ had food allergies and they were so bad that _whoo_ he lost a lotta weight in not a lot of time until they-”  
  
The panic bled away. He wasn’t questioning her story- just the weight-loss, which was, admittedly, much harder to explain than the coughing.  
  
 _It’s fine. I just need to eat more._  
  
But she couldn’t. It was already difficult to eat what she did.  
  
 _I’ll just… Have to try harder._  
  
[---]  
  
Easier said than done, when every bite of food either made her stomach cramp unpleasantly or made her feel like coughing it back up.  
  
She checked herself in the mirror whilst changing clothes one day, and found that without her full uniform on, it was painfully obvious just how much weight she had lost. She was starting to see her ribs when she inhaled. Her hip-bones were more prominent. So were the bones of her wrists.  
  
This wasn’t something she would be able to explain away. Coughing could be excused with normal things, but this level of weight-loss couldn’t be attributed to anything that wasn’t serious. She would have to make sure that no one saw her with her uniform jacket off, and never in clothes that were terribly form-fitting otherwise.  
  
She stared at herself in the mirror, trying to remember what she had looked like before, healthy and whole, and found that she couldn’t.  
  
It was yet another painfully physical, visible reminder to her that she was not going to see her body full and healthy again.  
  
[---]  
  
It was after Concordia’s surrender that she started to realize that the end was probably near.  
  
 _Her_ end.  
  
[---]  
  
She had an almost constant, low-level headache that pounded in her temples.  
  
In a dark, silent room, anyone could find her because her breathing had developed a noticeably raspy quality to it. She could not hide it, however hard she tried.  
  
And her weight had dropped low enough that any prolonged physical activity was enough to make her light-headed and even a bit confused, her body screaming out for nourishment while pushing it away at the same time.  
  
The worse it got, the less likely she thought it was that she would die in battle. Eventually she wouldn’t even be able to move. She would have no choice but to wither away and die on a bed in the infirmary, coughing and gagging on her own blood.  
  
Still, she pressed on.  
  
[---]  
  
Machina, he knew something was wrong.  
  
“Rem, please,” He all but begged, “ _Please_ tell me what’s wrong. Are you really okay? Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor?”  
  
It hurt, it hurt to see him so concerned, so frustrated (especially after Milites, especially after the confrontation regarding his brother, he seemed to be in so much pain), but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth.  
  
She had nightmares of how he would react, had nightmares of the tears and the desperation and the fear of losing her being brought to a fever pitch; the knowledge that he could do nothing to save her from this would be his undoing. He was already under enough stress- this might put him over the edge, and she was afraid of what he might do to himself.  
  
So she tried to smile, smile with a mouth and lips that tasted nothing but blood, and she assured him that she was fine.  
  
Perfectly, perfectly fine.  
  
[---]  
  
The Dominion launched an assault on Ingram.  
  
And they won.  
  
The war was over.  
  
[---]  
  
Those facts are so simple, but much like the news of her own immediate mortality, she had trouble wrapping her head around them  
  
Cid Aulstyne was nowhere to be found, having fled in the chaos of the final battle, no matter how hard she and the rest of the class combed the city.  
  
Machina couldn’t be found either- again. And Class Zero was evenly split between concern and irritation that he hadn’t even notified them that he wouldn’t be joining them on this particular mission, given its importance.  
  
“I’m sure he’s alright,” Seven said, and she was grateful that Seven was so kind, and that she seemed to like Machina as much as she did. “Surely the administration must know where he is. I’m sure there’s a good reason for him to not be here.”  
  
“There’d better be, yo,” Nine grunted, polishing his lance. “Or I’m gonna-” He turned, saw her, and fell silent.  
  
But really, it wouldn’t matter much soon.  
  
[---]  
  
On the airship ride home, she felt weaker than she ever had. It was as though she’d kept herself going for the war, for her friends, her dominion, her people, and now that it was all over, it was finally shutting down.  
  
The excited conversations that passed between the others was pleasant background chatter that she could barely process. Her head was drooping, and the energy in every muscle and nerve in her body seemed to be draining away as the minutes ticked by.  
  
“Tired?”  
  
She turned her head, and Trey was smiling at her.   
  
 She turned her head, and Trey was smiling at her. She nodded, managing only the smallest of smiles for her part.  
  
“Well, you’re welcome to lean on me if you like.” Only he could make that sort of offer and not make it sound like a flirtation.  
  
But she took him up on it, too exhausted to find a reason not to.  
  
[---]  
  
The end was coming.  
  
Every step towards the entry-gate hurt.  
  
Every movement was a considerable effort.  
  
 _This is what dying feels like_.  
  
It was over. It was well and truly over for her.  
  
And she was so tired that she couldn’t even be scared of it.  
  
Only grateful, but for one thing-  
  
 _I wish I could at least say goodbye to Machina._  
  
[---]  
  
In the entrance hall, she stumbled towards the wall, coughing with more strength than she thought she had.  
  
“Not… yet…”  
  
 _Machina_.  
  
“Just…”  
  
 _Machina, where are you?_  
  
The ground became the sky and the sky became the ground, cool marble turning to gray morphing into red, dark red, red as blood-  
  
“Rem?!”  
  
“Rem!”  
  
[---]  
  
Darkness.  
  
Everything darkness.  
  
Darkness…  
  
…And screaming.  
  
[---]  
  
A voice in the darkness, calling out from afar:  
  
“ _I see a strong heart, worthy to become a l’Cie. A query: wilt thou become a l’Cie and protest me, the vermillion bird?_ ”   
  
And then, as though someone were whispering into her ear:  
  
“ _The choice now goes to thee._ ”  
  
[---]  
  
_A l’Cie?_  
  
 _The Vermillion Bird Crystal… needs a l’Cie? But what about Lord Zhuyu?_  
  
“ _He has fallen,” The voice responded, to her surprise. “And thy comrades have declined. The choice goes to thee. Wilt thou become a l’Cie?_ ”  
  
Lord Zhuyu had fallen.  
  
Class Zero had refused.  
  
She was a dying girl, with nothing to lose.  
  
 _Yes_.  
  
[---]  
  
She came to in Dr. Al-Rashia’s office.  
  
She took a deep breath, and her lungs didn’t hitch or ache.  
  
Her stomach was settled; and upon inspection, it didn’t look as painfully flat as it had before. She looked _healthy._  
  
The coppery taste of blood, all she had tasted for the last few weeks, was gone.  
  
Rem Tokimiya was now a l’Cie.  
  
And for the first time in a long time, she felt _great_.


End file.
